Latest Obama Ad: Still Doing Penance in Working Class America

The Obama campaign dropped its latest TV ad Monday in 18 states — including a couple where the O wouldn’t seem to have much of a prayer (Montana is in the house!) It’s part of Obama’s Penance Tour of Working Class America.

Check out some of the text: The O “turned down big money offers, and helped lift neighborhoods stung by job loss. Fought for workers’ rights.” And the kicker: He’ll “never forget the dignity that comes from work.” It closes with The O hugging what appears to be some female kitchen workers.

This is the latest blue collar bouquet that Obama’s peeps have dropped across the heartland in the hope of appealing to a constituency that largely supported Hillary Clinton. And The O is still paying political restitution for saying at a April fundraiser in — yes, yes, we know, SAN FRANCISCO — that voters in small Midwestern towns crushed by job loss were bitter and “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.” Check out the transcript if you need a refresher.

The O will be trying to live that one down through November. Or, as Hillary Clinton supporter, Ind. Sen. Evan Bayh, predicted back in April: “This could be the kind of political issue that Karl Rove and the Republicans use to beat us over the head with and that would be a tragic thing.”

So that’s why this TV ad, and presumably, others will talk about how The O “worked his way through college and Harvard Law” (like you, working class voter! — uh, except for the Harvard part); and “turned down big money offers” (so he could help you, working class voter!) and that “he’ll never forget the dignity that comes from work” (after getting shredded as an elitist by you, working class voter!)

Is this a good strategy? Or is this what Ivy League-educated campaign strategists THINK will be a good strategy for reaching working class folks?

Check out the ad, which is scheduled to air in 18 states: Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Virginia.